June 01st - Justin Martyr

Words are powerful ideas. In Hebrew theology, knowing the name of something gives you power over it. When God give Moses His name, that means that Moses and Israel can call on Him and He will answer.
Justin wandered through various systems of thought before being convinced, intellectually, by The Word. When he saw others dying for the Faith he took it upon himself to convince the powers that be and anyone who would listen as to the merits of Christianity. Eventually that led to his own arrest.
After some back and forth, Rusticus, his interrogator, said, "Let us come to the pressing matter at hand. Agree together and sacrifice with one accord to the gods." Justin replied, "No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to what is false...If you do not obey, you shall be punished without mercy...If we are punished for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ we hope to be saved, for this shall be our salvation and confidence before the terrible judgment-seat of our Lord and Savior which shall judge the whole world." Rusticus condemned him and the others with him to death and he was beheaded.
So often we read only of his defense to martyrdom and rarely the works of his life, the reason we see him a not just a martyr but a Father. The following gives insight into his reason to hope even in the midst of his trial: "true belief."

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But following our order, we must now speak with respect to those who think meanly of the flesh, and say that it is not worthy of the resurrection nor of the heavenly economy, because, first, its substance is earth; and besides, because it is full of all wickedness, so that it forces the soul to sin along with it. But these persons seem to be ignorant of the whole work of God, both of the genesis and formation of man at the first, and why the things in the world were made. For does not the word say, "Let Us make man in our image, and after our likeness?" What kind of man? Manifestly He means fleshly man, For the word says, "And God took dust of the earth, and made man." It is evident, therefore, that man made in the image of God was of flesh. Is it not, then, absurd to say, that the flesh made by God in His own image is contemptible, and worth nothing? But that the flesh is with God a precious possession is manifest, first from its being formed by Him, if at least the image is valuable to the former and artist; and besides, its value can be gathered from the creation of the rest of the world. For that on account of which the rest is made, is the most precious of all to the maker.


-- Treatise on the Resurrection, VII